Must-See TV
Army Of Darkness
ElRey
5 p.m.
A discount-store employee is time-warped to a medieval castle, where he is the foretold savior who can dispel the evil there. Unfortunately, he screws up and releases an army of skeletons. (tvguide.com)

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

"Despite constant complaints from the press corps and promises from White House officials, access to the president continues to be limited in ways not seen in previous administrations," Politicoreports.

Daley Skates Again
"Richard M. Daley won't have to take the witness stand in the case over the city's controversial contract with a clout-heavy group of investors to run a Millennium Park restaurant after attorneys for the Park Grill agreed it would be a 'medical hardship' for the former mayor to testify," the Tribunereports.

"The attorneys dropped their subpoena of Daley after seeing a medical affidavit. Cook County Circuit Court Judge Moshe Jacobius allowed Daley's lawyers to submit the affidavit in his chambers rather than in open court, and ordered all parties not to reveal specifics of Daley's condition.

"We saw the medical information, which I cannot disclose, and it was such that it was the right thing to do to withdraw the subpoena," Park Grill lawyer Stephen Novack said outside the courtroom in the Richard J. Daley Center. "I can't say anything at all about what was in there."

I'm a bit baffled by this. If he was suffering from some sort of dementia, that would be one thing - though I still wouldn't understand why the public couldn't be told, outside of his family's public relations considerations.

But the Trib reports that "A source said Wednesday that the 72-year-old former mayor 'is not incapacitated.'

"Although he's improving, he has a ways to go," the source said, without specifying what Daley was improving from.

If he was "improving," one might think he could testify in the future. But that doesn't seem like a possibility either.

Red Light Rahm
On Tuesday, Rahm Emanuel said it was "not for me to decide" if drivers caught in red light camera spikes should get some relief.

"There are always spikes in any automated enforcement program due to fluctuations in traffic volume and driver behavior," Transportation Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld told aldermen during an unscheduled appearance at a City Council committee hearing. "When traffic is impacted by normal construction, special events, or even weather, we cannot always predict where traffic will be pushed, but it is normal for drivers to find their own alternative routes that could include red light cameras."

One Northwestern University traffic expert who reviewed the Tribune's findings called her assertion "nonsense."

"Come on. That would explain spikes of that level? Nonsense," said Joseph Schofer, an engineering professor who sits on city transportation advisory panels. "It's just fundamental, you can't look at something that is red and call it green.

"It seems obvious to me what they are doing now," he said. "They don't have any explanation. They are under this intense pressure, and now they are grasping."

Scheinfeld didn't respond to a Trib interview request, presumably because she didn't want to be called on her bullshit.

*

"Emanuel is also promising to post daily violations for each of the 352 red-light cameras installed at 174 Chicago intersections," the Sun-Timesreports.

"The daily postings will more quickly identify suspicious and unexplained spikes like those uncovered in a nearly year-long Tribune investigation of more than four million red-light tickets."

The James Cappleman Show
"On one hand, he is willing to forge ahead with the SRO decimation that many experts agree has helped push more of the city's most vulnerable residents into homelessness, and on the other, he continues to harass the homeless people this creates."

"The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither 'concrete facts' nor 'irrefutable evidence' to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist."

"Recorded in 1946. Saxophonist Art Kassel and his 'Kassels in the Air' were a staple on the Chicago music scene for more than thirty years. Debuting in 1924 at the Midway Gardens the group later spent a 15-year engagement at the Bismark Hotel and frequented both the Aragon and Trianon ballrooms, where it received national radio exposure."